A mixed-methods study of how cancer-related fatigue affects occupational participation and engagement, and is managed in daily life
Bibliographic record
Abstract
Introduction: Cancer-related fatigue (CRF) is a persistent, debilitating symptom that disrupts daily life and occupational participation. Understanding its impact is vital for developing effective interventions that support fatigue management and meaningful engagement. This study examined CRF's impact on occupational participation and how individuals manage it. Method: A mixed-methods design combined semi-structured interviews with the Activity Card Sort-UK. Seventeen participants with CRF (7 men, 10 women) and diverse cancer types were recruited using purposive, maximum variation sampling. Interviews were analysed using framework analysis, guided by the Canadian Model of Occupational Performance and Engagement. Findings: Quantitative data showed 59% experienced severe fatigue and 80% reported low fatigue self-efficacy. Leisure, social and high-demand activities were most affected. Three qualitative themes emerged: loss of enjoyment and engagement in meaningful occupations; coping through reactive and proactive strategies; and emotional consequences related to disrupted identity and reduced occupational participation. Participants described trade-offs, diminished spontaneity and altered roles. Gender, age and social context influenced both the impact and coping strategies, and many felt unsupported. Conclusion: CRF impairs occupational engagement and identity. Occupational therapists and multidisciplinary teams should routinely assess CRF and provide tailored, occupation-focused interventions that support fatigue self-management and preserve meaningful participation. Research should further develop these interventions.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame distilled prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. Learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and 10,348 direct Gemma labels. Candidate is the union of thresholded teacher heads; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels or direct frontier model labels.
Codex and Gemma teacher scores by category
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.001 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Open science | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Research integrity | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one teacher head, not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".